2007-06-05 13:21:29
I spent the day yesterday in the UBC hospital from 8:30 and finally released at 6PM. I took both my first doses of the trial medication which was all very interesting. I learned to inject myslef (!) and I actually did much better than I thought I would! My nurse was even telling everyone that I saw for other tests how shocked she was at how well I did :) Pretty happy about that. I was really shocked at how non-painful an intra-muscular injection was. I was totally expecting it to hurt big time and it just didn't. Crazy to have it all in my head about what it would be like only to be proven completely wrong. We'll see how I do at home next week doing it on my own without my nurse saying "just do it now, go ahead." :) I think it was "the other Heather" that sent me the butter analogy... the needle goes through your leg like a knife going into a pound of butter sitting on the counter. So true! My hands did start to shake once I was done the injection though. I didn't get the wash of fainting feeling, but I was a bit shaky for a few minutes afterwards. Phew! I can see a small poke hole in my leg from where I did the injection, but nothing else around it. no redness or tenderness.
Then I took the first dose of the oral med and had to stay in cardiology for 6 hours of observation. I was having blood pressure and all sorts of heart readings done hourly. This med can lower your heart rate when you take the first dose so they watch you really carefully. I'm not supposed to know if I'm on that drug though so I don't know what my readings were for the whole time. I do know that I had to be kept an extra hour and had to go walking and do some stairs to get my heart rate up some before being released. My heart rate was 66 in the morning and then I heard my nurse say to the doctor when she was going to release me that my heart rate had come up so I was clear to leave. Hmmm... so either I'm just really relaxed in the hospital environment or I'm on that med and it did what was expected.
It's an interesting head game now. I want to try to figure out what I'm on! hahaha. Bad. I shouldn't be doing that! I will find out in one year from today what I'm on. So, I'll just have to be patient! Beth - 51 injections to go! :)